onsdag den 2. februar 2011

In the aftermath of the second world war, the world changed slowly but surely. Global politics as we knew it then changed: New words such as the United Nations, superpowers and NATO were cropping up, and the interaction between countries both on a local and international scale was forever changed.

The change in politics and transnational interaction would also forever change how we perceived national values, ideologies and civilisation(s) in general. Even 70 years after the war, we are still unsure of the following: Are the civilisations of the world clashing or aligning?

There are many interesting theories and thoughts concerning this question. Two of the most recognized theories are those of Francis Fukuyama (as explained in the essay “The End of History?” concerning the alignment of civilisations) and Samuel P. Hunting (as put forth in “The Clash of Civilisations”, arguing for a coming clash of civilisations).

Francis Fukuyama is an American philosopher and political economist born in 1952. His theory and thoughts can be summed up as follows: The conflict of ideologies is coming to an end, as civilisations are becoming more alike each other.

The title of his essay “The End of History?” is based upon the fact that history is written in times of conflict. As the reason for most conflicts is an incomparability of ideologies, an alignment of ideologies would therefore remove the ground for conflicts, and, by that extend, remove the ground for history, ergo “The End of History”.

The question mark implies an uncertainty, which could be interpreted as Fukuyama being uncertain alignment of cultures would remove all conflicts.

According to Fukuyama, the nations around the would are adopting the western ideals (such as freedom of speech and democracy) at an increasing rate. For instance, the fall of the USSR made way for liberal economic ideas in Russia, and not to mention a democratic government. This tendency of adoption of western ideals held true with China after the death of chairman Mao Zedong in China. His successor, chairman Liu Shaoqi, opened the Chinese market for foreign investors, an idea more consistent with the Western open economy system, in comparison with the Chinese planned economy system.

When the countries outside the West adopts concepts such as the open economy system, democracy and freedom of speech, they will have no reason to start conflicts with the West, as they are a extension of it. If their neighbouring countries are also democratic open economy system nations with the same set of ideals, they will have no reason to start a conflict with them, either. Apply this trail of thought on a global scale, and you will have world peace, and therefore the end of history.

lørdag den 30. oktober 2010

So I picked up my old GameBoy today, and started playing Pokemon Yellow.

I had totally forgotten how great this game is. Zubats and slow walking aside, I am having genuine fun with this game. After having played for what felt like an hour, I looked up and found out I had been playing for four. This is intense!

torsdag den 28. oktober 2010

One of my favourite replays.I've been playing this game for a while now - I got in around halfway through the beta, and have been playing it ever since.

I still play it roughly every day. I was never really into Starcraft I or RTS games in general, but I have molded myself into a solid middle diamond player. This game is frigging awesome - from the thrills of throwing it all away in a mad reaper dash, to the long and tedious macro battles, to the little pushes with one marauder and four marines.. I love it all.

The campaign was awesome, although the ending was a little disappointing. The gameplay is of epic Blizzard quality, and the graphics are extremely decent, even though my laptop may not be able to run it on the highest settings.

søndag den 24. oktober 2010

It may be cliche, but I felt that it was appropriate to start my first blog post with the introductory phrase "Hello World." Just as the first thing I learned to program was how to print the phrase "Hello world" on a computer screen, I feel that the month I've spent interning at Pivotal Labs has been an introduction into the world of software engineering.
Before I begin reflecting about my time at Pivotal in ernest, I feel that I should give some background about me so that my posts can be understood in the proper context. I am a Computer Science major at Berkeley going into my Senior Year. My first job in the field of software engineering was last summer, where I worked for a small company that did technology strategy campaigns for grassroot political movements. The first language I programmed in was Java, followed by Scheme, more Java, C, a little Python, and Groovy on Grails for my job last summer. Also, the only version control system I had really used prior to Pivotal was Subversion, and only when my professors had forced me to. Given all that, just about everything at Pivotal has been new to me, from Ruby and Rails to Git to Pair Programming, I feel like I've learned at least one new thing a day since I've started, and I will attempt to reflect on all of it going forward from today.
The first thing I noticed on my first day was how open the office felt. I had been to the office for my interview, but I was pretty nervous at the time and not particularly aware of my surroundings. As I've continued to work there, I've realized what a boon it is to work in an office with no cubicles. For one thing, I feel less trapped and enclosed by the office environment, which at the very least, prevents going to work from feeling like a prison. In addition, I've noticed how it promotes knowledge sharing because since all space is essentially public, developers feel free to walk over to each other's areas to ask for help.
Another thing that stands out is the 9-6 work day, and how almost every programmer leaves their desks at 6 pm everyday. This was pretty surprising to me coming in. Almost everyone is familiar with the stereotype of a programmer pulling an all-nighter, or staying late to fix a particularly devious bug, and while I wasn't expecting anything so drastic, I imagined that there would at least be a few people staying late coding. After leaving work while in the middle of a hard problem, I realized that not only does the strict 9-6 work week help keep us from getting burned out, but that by going home and sleeping on a problem (no matter how tempting it is to try and solve it immediately), I have been able to come up with better solutions quicker than I would have had I sat there for an extra hour or two.
The last reflection I want to make about my first couple of days at Pivotal is the breakfast. It has been widely publicized that eating breakfast in the morning helps people be more productive and focused. As a student who tries not to schedule classes before noon if possible, I have found this to be particularly true. Also, I feel that the breakfast tends to promote some sort of unity/harmony since a majority of the office shows up and socializes with one another.
That's all I have for now. In my next post I'm planning on giving my thoughts on pair programming.